I wish to be a duck

I had this thought on the way to work today and I tried to reason it out. I could not, were I a water fowl, live in safety. There are humans who bring their guns to kill me, there are animals who bring their teeth and claws for the sole purpose to eat me or my children, there are humans who fill my home with waste and sewage, making it impossible for me to live a healthy life.

But.

There is a layer of fat, which causes me to be warm. There are always other birds with which to herald out the news. There are feathers, which would, at a moment’s notice, carry me off to anywhere I please, without so much as a thought about money, security or planning. There is no lack of colors with which I am covered, some changing hue in the irridescence of the sun. There are ponds, like the one at which I currently perch, that I may bathe freely. There are trees to shelter me, to feed me.

I could be free.

But then my thoughts return to the present, and I am caught with two legs and a heart filled with hope. I would give it all up, everything I hold dear, to free my heart, to free myself from these constraints of gravity. I would soar above the clouds and straight into bliss, for that is where I truly belong, not stuck here with my shoes in the earth, smelling the decay of the leaves and whispering to the squirrels that come to me for sustinance. But here I am, smiling as they sing the song of my people, trumpeting like downy angels. One day, my fellow travelers, I shall join you in the sky. But until then, perhaps I will find contentment in just breathing the same air.

I’m not suffering from delusions, but as Alice herself once said, “I believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Truly though, would it not be fantastic to be a thing with cares so few and the power of wings?

In other news, I would also like to be a mermaid, but I seem to lack fins and that rant is for another day to come.